-by Joyce Hoen DF
Astrol S-This
article appeared in The International Astrologer, Volume XXVII, Number 3, 1998
and for Dutch readers: appeared in CHTA's Astrokrant, 1998

The Void of Course Moon is a Moon
at the end of a zodiacal sign, in which she makes no further
aspects from that same sign; any new aspects formed will only
occur after she has passed the threshold into the next sign. I
almost said: "in which He makes no further aspects". How
many people still refer to the Moon as if she were masculine? In
fact, in Germany they all do: "Die Sonne, Der Mond"..
but the Moon is feminine (or human...). The night. The dark. The
unconscious. The other side. Invisible. The Astral, too.

American astrologer Al H. Morrison
was the one who introduced the concept of the Void of Course Moon
to the astrological world. According to him, each period of a V/C
Moon (and this occurs once every 2,5 days) promotes the oddest of
circumstances, time-frames best used for spiritual and not for
material goals. For meditation. Or for sleep. Decisions in such a
time-frame are decisions without any reality, and will result in
nothing.

It is easy to track down V/C Moon
periods In the American Ephemeris from the tables at the
bottom of each page. Where it says "Last Aspect" (of the
Moon) you will find the time at which the Moon makes her last
aspect, to then enter a V/C period.

Meanwhile, it has become clear to me
that the nature of the last aspect is very significant for the V/C
time-frame, thereafter. And when the Moon enters a new sign, for
which the time is given under "ingress", this marks the
end of the V/C period. The Moon will most likely be between 26 and
30 degrees of a given sign, meaning that she is then at either the
Aquarian or Piscean phase of a sign. Indeed, the V/C Moon shows
much of an Aquarian/Piscean nature, even when she is V/C in Taurus,
for example. Apparently neurotic tendencies and strange results
with ESP experiments happen in the V/C Moon timeframe. Morrison
also found that the first 24 succesful speed flights occurred at
such a time!

The first thing that we as
astrologers usually learn is that the Sun and the Moon may not be
planets, but in astrology they are simply viewed as such. On a
certain level this is one of the gravest errors that we as
astrologers make. The Sun and the Moon are the LIGHTS in
relationship to our Earthly experience, to ourselves, and to the
Earth itself, which is the planet here. The Sun is the center of
"our" universe, and the Moon the factor of "protection"
around Earth. Like an aura around it, a protection especially in
the night when we are in the dark - alone, and without the Sun's
guidance. When we don't see the other because it is dark, and only
meet ourselves, we helplessly call out for a Mother. The Moon and
Earth belong to one another, they are a unity. Together with the
other planets we, this Moon and Earth, revolve around the Sun.

Now imagine, that by means of the Sun
and the Moon, by means of these lights, all planetary activity is
reflected. This planetary activity simply is the projection of the
next dimension of our being, of our Moon-and-Sun beings.

The planetary realm out to and up
until Saturn can be regarded as a matter of fact as a kind of
next extension of the Moon (Prakriti).

The planetary realm from Uranus
onwards can be regarded as an extension of the Sun (Purusha).

The Sun we regard as Self, whereas
the Moon is seen as Not-Self, learned or conditioned behavior,
purely a means for survival on this planet. In our experience of
the world and of ourselves, especially in experiencing ourselves
as astrologers, we struggle with the duality of Free Will and
Fatalism. This is the same duality as the duality between Sun and
Moon, between conscious and unconscious and is the same as
"the individual" and "the collective".

On the earthly level the Sun is the
function for the free will within us, and the Moon the function of
fatality. Because it is our emotions which reflect the
collectivity of a moment in time, even if we are not aware of that.
And our emotions rule our lives, and hence "fatality"
and "fate" seem to be matters coming at us from the
outside, whereas in fact they stem from our unconscious energy
fields, which evoke these "fatalistic happenings". A
particular unconscious energy-vibration will call forth exactly
the same vibration in the external world.

It often seems as if our unconscious
has an autonomous quality, a quality living us, rather than the
other way around, giving each thing which is unconscious a life of
its own, precisely because it is unconscious.
It is not that illogical to suppose that the Sun and the Moon
symbolize the right and left hemispheres of our brains, however,
Saturn and Uranus do so in a very similar manner on a different
level. The Self, the Sun and Uranus, and the conditioned not-self,
(the collective): the Moon and Saturn. It is fascinating that Leo
opposes Aquarius in the zodiac (ruled by the Sun and Uranus) and
that Cancer opposes Capricorn (ruled by the Moon and Saturn.

There, where we are part of the
collective in time, or part of a family, in ourselves we are
reflections of a larger whole (the Moon) or Saturn (reflections of
the status-quo. There, where we are self, we are the Sun. There,
where are an individualized Self, we are Uranus and the Sun in
combination. And both of these together is holism. Saturn &
Uranus together means for us people on this planet, an evolution
to a more holistic world-view, a more holistic view of humanity.
Much like a conjunction of the Sun and the Moon, as in a New Moon.

Now, think back for a moment to 1988,
when Saturn and Uranus were conjunct. Maybe now you can understand
why you made such an enormous turn in 1988, from maybe too much
yang, to more yin, or vice-versa. Your entire life was turned
around. Maybe you became a mother or a father, maybe you changed
from rational to intuitive, or vice-versa. Your entire life was
reversed, because all of the energy streams within started to
cooperate. A planetary "New Moon" calling forth a new
cycle in time is what occurred at that time.

1999 will be fascinating in this
connection, because the first square between Saturn and Uranus (at
the August 1999 eclips-time) will mean the struggle with that
which was in fact born in 1998 collectively, where countries and
borders of countries for a new world were concerned. And also for
our own new world within ourselves, which was born at that time
and is reaching the period of 7 years of age (brought back to the
dimensions of generic personal growth).

Humanity as a whole is involved in
entering the Aquarian Age (or in any case, the Western World as a
whole). I personally think that the Aquarian Age started in the
month of May, 1988. The generous thing about Aquarius is that it
allows each single individual to have a different opinion of this.
And so it is wholly acceptable to have a different view of when,
exactly, this Aquarian Age will start. It is a different moment in
time for each of us maybe. In fact, it is that moment when an
individual has passed the threshold of Saturn, and evolved from a
collective being (Moon) and member of the Status Quo (Saturn), to
an individalized person, free of restriction resulting in
acceptation of restriction: acceptation of the Moon and of Saturn...

The month of May 1988 was precisely 9
months after "The Harmonic Convergence" of August 1987.
Why would a spiritual process, brought back to the dimensions of
earthly time and space, not need 9 months to become born?And
isn't it fascinating that 9 months after the eclipse of August
1999, there will be a conglomeration of planets in Taurus (May 5
2000), and a new Jupiter/Saturn cycle being born at that time, too?
So many people in the new age movement (notably non-astrologers)
think this May 2000 happening is going to be really something - a
new time for planet Earth will certainly happen 9 months after the
eclipse of August 1999, and maybe it will be an initiation
especially for those people who did not experience 1987 and 1988
as such as yet.

The Aquarian Age teaching is that the
Masters and Gurus of the Piscean Age have been transformed into
the Masters and Gurus within us. In fact, this is really nothing
new, at least not for the East, yet maybe it is for the Western
world, for which western astrology is more valid. The most
important message of Aquarius-rising "Master"
Krishnamurti was precisely this one: it was okay in the Piscean
age to seek outside for a guru, a wise person, or even a spiritual
helper that we would channel. It is as if we would in fact not
channel our own higher Selves, but make them into entities of
external constellations, such as Sirius, Orion, or the Pleiades.
As long as we in the western world do not say that something is
coming forth out of ourselves.... In an Aquarian Age it is we
ourselves (without the ego becoming inflated, hopefully) who are
special and unique and full of wisdom in our own ways. Our egos
and our own Souls, or Higher Selves, is the relationship that
matters. At the moment that I speak of myself as "I", I
speak from the point of view of ego and then I have a relationship
with something that apparently is
outside of myself: this Soul or Higher Self. And so I would call
it maybe channeling, or a Christ-like figure, or a Guru. And ah
well, maybe this is not such a bad idea for our mental health --
even Ramakrishna kept the relationship he had with "the
Divine Mother" intact, because the moment he realised it was
he himself, he no longer was able to relate to people, or relate
at all (no longer being separated from "It") and would
fly out of here...

So back to the Divine Mother, to the
Moon, to the Earth. Thus far in astrology we were mostly concerned
to divorce ourselves from here, as if we collectively have a Void
of Course Moon. We want to go to Uranus straight away (super-technology,
space, centering ourselves abstractly in our heads, etc). By
denying an energy (the Moon) only because this energy operates in
the night, and we being asleep at such a time, of course such an
energy is precisely the one that is being lived. Autonomous and
unconsciously. The Moon is the sole ruler of the night. In the end
the themes of masculinity versus femininity are the same themes as
the Sun and the Moon, are the same themes as rationality versus
emotion, and are the same themes as objectivity versus
subjectivity. And for a very long time astrology itself was pretty
"void" with regard to any emotionality, the feminine,
the feeling, the subjective and even the physical. This subjective
is being reflected in the collective.. Truth is the ultimate
subjectivity. Truth is being experienced within, and cannot be
found in the outside world.

Such a notion needs communication in
a rational way, not the other way around! An astrology that will
only concentrate on Sun-signs will tell us that the Moon-signs are
nothing but reflections of emotional conditioning, of behavorial
patterns from the past, and maybe even of past lives. If we browse
through a book full of charts and concentrate on the Moon-signs,
we would find that those tell us as much about any person as the
Sun-signs do. If the Moon reflects ego, and the Sun the Self,
religious people in all times and all cultures may have tried to
reach the Self and subdue the ego. Since the Moon also reflects
the feminine in each of us, men have, for centuries, denied both
women, as well as the feminine within, and made women suffer
instead of their own ego's. Even if the ego is the servant of the
Self, this does not mean that the ego of one person (a woman) is
supposed to be the servant of the ego of another person (the man).
We are all to serve the higher within ourselves and at the same
time treasure and respect the lunar level, that is OUR servant!

In fact, the Void of Course Moon is a
Moon that precisely by distancing herself from the lunar powers
"discovers the Moon". I was amazed to find out for
instance that some researcher who had devoted his entire
scientific life to the Moon, was born with a V/C Moon himself. And
that many young children, who already were famous at an early age
and on stage (childstars), and thus were denied a normal
family-life, were born with a V/C Moon. Yes, it is possible to
discover a principle by going into an opposite direction, the
"Via Negativa" of the mystics. Souls of all people
distance themselves first from their divine origins, incarnating
on this planet, because otherwise they never would discover their
inborn divinity.

In this connection, it is
understandable that the first 24 succesful space flights occurred
during a V/C Moon, and that Neil Armstrong, the frst human being
ever to set foot on the Moon, was born himself with a Void of
Course Moon.

And what did we collectively discover
after that incredible moment in time? Planet Earth.